Tonight's Academy Lecture -- Samples Returns

 Join us tonight at 7:30 p.m. when Professor Kenneth Samples continues the Academy series entitled “Learning Skills 101: Learning How To Learn (Part 5)”

The Study Skills 101: Learning How To Learn class is specifically offered to help believers sharpen their thinking, reading, and speaking skills. This course can be directly helpful to teachers, parents (especially homeschool parents), and students, particularly adult students who want to engage in a lifelong journey of intellectual discovery and learning. This class can serve as a fun and challenging opportunity to clear the mental cobwebs that too often accumulate with the passage of time and age. All educational levels can benefit from the content of this class. Come and learn the enduring insights of famed philosopher and educator Mortimer J. Adler by studying his best selling work How to Read a Book. -- Professor Kenneth Samples.

Textbooks: How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren and A World of Difference by Kenneth Samples

Instructor: Professor Kenneth Samples, Senior Scholar of Apologetics at Reasons to Believe, Adult Education Instructor at Christ Reformed Church, Anaheim.

Number 27!

If you read this blog, you know that I am a die-hard Yankees fan.  I've been one ever since my parents took me to see the Angels play the Yankees back in July of 1964.  I remember that game like it was yesterday. 

The game was at Dodger Stadium because Anaheim Stadium had not yet been built.  My sister got Albie Pearson's autograph on my baseball glove (he was an Angels outfielder and a leader in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and I still have that glove).  Jim Bouton pitched for the Yankees--I remember that his hat kept falling off because of his odd follow-through.  The Yankees won 5-0.

My folks were hoping I'd become a fan of the new local baseball team (the Angels).  We are Orange Countians after all, not New Yorkers.  But when the Yankees took the field, it was love at first sight.

And now here we are, forty-five years later and I am as thrilled today, as I was on July 29, 1964.

Don't give me the same old line about A-Rod and Pettitte being cheaters, or that the Yankees bought the pennant.  They've spent big bucks every year from 2001-2008 and didn't win the World Series.  A-Rod and Pettitte came clean and the PED issue is a much bigger story than these two guys. 

The Yankees won this year because they played very good fundamental baseball, which made them a blast to watch, and in the end ensured their twenty-seventh World Series victory!  And I am thrilled!

Horton on ECT and the BVM

Horton writes,

"Ask many Protestants today why they are not Roman Catholic and they may refer to `something about Mary and the saints.'  However, for the Reformers, the heart of the problem was the sufficiency of Scripture and especially the sufficiency of Christ the Mediator for sinners.  Are we justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, or by grace and our merits, faith and our works, Christ and the intercession of Mary and the saints."

To read the rest of Michael's essay, http://www.whitehorseinn.org/archives/196.html

More Christ Reformed Audio Posted

The techies at Christ Reformed have posted a number of audio files of my sermons preached long ago at Christ Reformed.

These include a number of series and occasional sermons:

The Drama of Redemption (Exodus, Leviticus)

The Drama of Redemption (Numbers, Deuteronomy)

The Drama of Redemption (Joshua)

The Drama of Redemption (Judges)

Mark

Reformation Sundays

This Week's White Horse Inn

The Reason for God

How can we believe in God when there is so much evil and suffering in the world? Isn't it arrogant to insist that Christianity is the only true religion? These questions and more will be addressed on this edition of the White Horse Inn as Tim Keller joins the panel to discuss his New York Times bestselling book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.

http://www.whitehorseinn.org/

Who Said That?

"But the truth is, it is not Jesus as historically known, but Jesus as spiritually arisen within men, who is significant for our time and can help it.  Not the historical Jesus, but the spirit which goes forth from Him and in the spirits of men strives for new influence and rule, is that which overcomes the world."

Leave your guess in the comments section below.  Please, no google searches or cheating.  Answer to follow next week.

"If God Be for Us" -- Romans 8:28-39

Here's the audio from this morning's sermon for Reformation Sunday

Click here

Reformation Hymn Festival -- Tonight at 7:30!

Join us at Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim as we celebrate the Reformation with Scripture reading and song! 

Our Festival of Hymns will be held on Friday, October 30, at 7:30 p.m. There will be readings from Scripture and the Reformed confessions, as well as  congregational singing accompanied by our choir, brass, and organ.  All are welcome to stay for dessert and fellowship after the Hymn Festival.  For directions, click on this link (www.christreformed.org) or call (714) 538-1057.

"But You Must Remember" -- Jude 1-25

The Second in a Two-Part Series on the Epistle of Jude

Have you ever wondered what a sermon would be like in one of the churches founded during the time of the apostles?  How did those in the apostolic circle preach?  Since the New Testament was not yet completed, how did they utilize the Old Testament, so as to show forth Christ?  Well, in verses 5-16 of the Epistle of Jude we find such a sermon (or at least a portion of such a sermon) which serves as the main body of Jude’s epistle.   Citing from both the Old Testament as well as apocryphal Jewish writings, Jude is able to remind his readers that God has a long history of dealing with false teachers and apostates, and those men who were currently troubling the churches to which Jude is writing face certain judgment.  Even as Jude’s readers are to earnestly contend for that faith “once for all delivered to the saints,” they are to also build themselves up in the most Holy faith, and to pray in the Holy Spirit.

We wrap up our short series (two Sundays) on the Epistle of Jude.  Last time, I dealt with introductory matters and the first four verses.  Recall that this epistle was written by Jude–the brother of James and Jesus–as early as the mid-fifties of the first century.  While Jude doesn’t give us any of the specifics about the churches to which he is writing, there is enough information here to gather that Jude is writing to a church (or churches) which was composed largely of Jewish converts to Christianity.  The members of these church were steeped in Jewish mysticism and end-time speculation–we’ll see why that is important momentarily.  Jude has learned that these unnamed churches were facing a very serious internal crisis, prompting Jude to write this epistle which is an urgent warning to his brethren.
 
Apparently, Jude was planning on a writing a letter to these churches about “our common salvation,” when word reached him that a group of traveling prophets and teachers had crept into these churches, introducing the dangerous heresy of antinomianism.  Antinomianism is the notion that since we are saved by God’s grace and not by our works, Christians are not in any sense bound to keep the law.  This particular group of false teachers had infiltrated their ranks, and were men who were using the grace of God as an excuse to engage in all kinds of sexual immorality.  Furthermore, these men were claiming that God was revealing himself to them through dreams and visions, which, supposedly gave great credibility to their deceptive message.  Upon learning that this was indeed going on, Jude sends this epistle to these churches exhorting them to deal with these men before they can do any more damage.

To read the rest of this sermon, click here

Horton's Review of N. T. Wright (Complete)

Here's the complete list of Mike Horton's ten part review of  N.T. Wright’s new book, Justification (IVP, 2009).   (h.t. Justin Taylor)

• Introduction
• Justification and God’s Single Plan: The Covenant and History
• Justification and God’s People
• Justification and God’s Righteousness: Imputation and Future Hope
• Justification and God’s Righteousness: Covenant and Eschatology
• Justification, Faith, and Faithfulness: The Works of the Law
• Justification and the Testimony of Paul
• Justification and Romans
• “Works of the Law”–Soteriology and Ecclesiology
• Conclusion